Previously an old café in Acton Park, Mike and Birdie saw a great potential in it. Their vision has clearly come to fruition after buying the café and transforming it into a beautiful space for locals to enjoy!

They have a wonderful menu, full of beautiful breakfasts and yummy lunches. They also have gluten free cakes, a nutritious and alternative salad bar and a range of our tasty teas!

With their impressive CVs, it’s no surprise that they also host private parties and functions for kids and adults!

It’s a great place for a tasty breakfast with the entire family, scrummy lunch with friends and being dog friendly, it’s a perfect stop off for a cup of tea and cake after a walk around the park.

Hands up. Who’s feeling like they over indulged this Christmas? Too much sherry and chocolates? Lots of sitting around watching films? We hear you! At The Kettle Shed, we’re certainly feeling like we ate too many mince pies but we know just the cure, Matcha Green Tea! It’s the perfect way to detox post Christmas and to give you and the new year a healthy kick start!

Health Benefits

But why is it so good? Well, as with any green tea, the drinker can expect to benefit from the wide range of antioxidants that come in every cup. But matcha tea is quite special when it comes to the levels of antioxidants. With approximately 15 times more antioxidants than most green teas, matcha is a super-strong toxin-killing tea that will leave you feeling refreshed and clean. This delicious and delightfully green tea has some great energy boosting properties that give you that burst you need to feel better and get on with your day. What’s more is this tea is an excellent calorie burner too, and that’s something most of us will want to make use of. Add the calorie burning effect on top of the energy boost, and it’s likely you’ll burn a few more calories than you would if you drank an energy drink.

Matcha Tea Origins

Although matcha tea is considered to be a fairly new product in the western world, it has in fact been drunk in Japan for a very long time. Taken from China to Japan almost one thousand years ago, it is rumoured a Zen Monk by the name of Eisai brought the tea seeds to Japan. Since then, Zen Buddha’s have drunk matcha tea to help them focus while they meditate. As well as introducing matcha tea to Japan, Eisai also introduced some Zen philosophies, and some became intertwined with drinking this wonderful tea. Specific preparation and drinking rituals were undertaken in The Way of Tea, which was an important ceremony at that time.

How to drink it

Matcha tea cannot be drunk in the same way as other teas because of its flavour and antioxidant properties. To ensure you enjoy your cuppa perfectly, read the following instructions:

1. Warm your mug or cup with got water before pouring the water away. Make sure you also warm you utensils too as it will help to prevent the tea from cooling too quickly.

2. Add around 3 grams of matcha powder per 150 ml of water to you cup/mug.

3. Boil your water and allow it to cool slightly.

4. Add enough the hot water to your cup/mug to just cover the powder and whisk in a forwards and backwards motion so a paste is formed.

5. Add the remaining hot water and continue to stir the tea until you have a smooth and frothy consistency.

Top Tip! When you drink this tea, you should ideally sip it, this will make sure you avoid the crash you would usually get with caffeinated drinks. Sipping the tea will also give you more time to enjoy the smooth velvety flavour that has an adorable leafy essence.

Samba Swirl isn’t just about frozen yoghurt; they have the perfect cure for all those winter blues! With a range of hot drinks and speciality teas, cold pressed juices and sweet treat combinations in their new “signature” drinks menu, there is something for everyone. From a herbal and spicy hot-toddy to delicious red velvet or carrot cake, this is the perfect place to escape on a cold, winter day.

Run by Lyndsey and David, the duo set up Samba Swirl after a trip to America where they came hooked on frozen yoghurt. Coming back to the UK to find no such alternative, they started on a quest to find out what makes the highest quality frozen yoghurt. Being led to Italy, the home of gelato, the team developed and refined their innovative yoghurt range and in 2011 set up the first self service frozen yoghurt shop in the UK.

Loose leaf are large loose tea leaves that are stored usually in a tea tin and then served in one of our tea infusers. You can choose how little or how much tea you would like in your drink.

What are Fuso tea bags?

Fuso tea bags are triangular type tea bags. The triangular or pyramid shape improves the liquidity of the tea leaves when they come in contact with hot water and allow for prompt extraction, which means stronger tastier tea! A benefit of our fuso tea bags is that they are biodegradable, which means they are capable of being decomposed by the action of biological agents, especially bacteria. Material that, left to itself, will be decomposed by natural processes. Note: The use of biodegradable packaging is supposed to reduce the volume of waste in landfills. So, each time you buy tea online in the UK from us you are helping the environment rather than buying from standard supermarket vendors where their tea bags result in them clogging up landfill!

In actual fact, there is not a lot of difference between our loose leaf tea and our fuso bags as we pick the highest quality tea leaves and ingredients so in both instances you get big tasty tea leaves. The only difference is, with loose leaf you can choose exactly how much tea you require and add it to one of our infusers yourself rather than us adding the tea to our fuso tea bags. Both fuso tea bags and loose leaf tea comes in 6 different forms of tea.

The main thing to consider is, if you want a slightly fuller tastier tea and have a bit more time to pick bigger leaves out of your container and give loose leaf tea a chance to steep for a few extra minutes, then loose leaf is the way forward. If you want a quicker brew then fuso tea bags is the one for you! Coming up soon on the blog, we are going to go deep into a real issue regarding quality of tea in the UK tea world.

Tea makes a perfect present at Christmas and we have lots of gorgeous brews for everyone’s taste buds!

For the guys out there, why not try Kick-In Coco, which is delicious with or without milk. Alternatively, Tutti Frutti is a treat on the eyes with it’s colourful infusion of tropical fruits. Both are great winter drinks!

Darjeeling is known as “the champagne of teas”, so why not pick up our uniquely blended, Dargeeling Darling to enjoy on Christmas day. It’s available as a loose-leaf tea and also in biodegradable fuso bags. To make that gift extra special, don’t forget to check out our tea infusers too!

For those ready to kick start the year with a healthy detox, try our Matcha green tea. It’s a fantastic energy booster, calorie burner and is the perfect antidote to post-lunch lethargy.

If there are too many to choose from, why not pick up a delightful hamper instead! This is the perfect gift for any tea lover and you get to choose the teas. Your selection comes in a snap shut box, with white ribbon, so it’s all ready to give as a present.

Don’t forget, there is still free postage on everything at The Kettle Shed!

We love a good wedding, especially one with a theme. So, when Kate and Laura got in touch to say they were having an “Afternoon tea” theme using The Kettle Shed tea, we were delighted and promptly put the kettle on to celebrate!

Marrying at Ladore Falls Hotel in the Lake District, Kate and Laura treated their guests to an afternoon tea in the Garden Suite. Each table was named after a different Kettle Shed tea, with a beautiful bag of loose leaf tea as wedding favours for the guests. Laura had even hand written descriptions of the teas for every guest. What a wonderful touch!

We were over the moon to be shown the beautiful photos of the big day by Derwent Photography, including snaps of the stunning afternoon tea themed tables.

Huge congratulations to the beautiful ladies, Kate and Laura, from all of us at The Kettle Shed!

Fancy a tea themed wedding? Why not get in touch to find the perfect tea for your big day!